“I will never forget Attica,” says the now 89-year-old Clarence Jones, then publisher of the Amsterdam News in a talking heads interview in this jaw-dropping new feature. After bearing witness to this stunning new work by filmmaker Stanley Nelson, neither will the viewer. Utterly shocking, and unbelievably familiar 50 years on, this brilliantly made, though unflinching new documentary pulls no punches in re-telling the infamous events of 1971 and catching up with some of those that were there over those fateful five days.
It is pretty much 50 years to the day since the inmates of the Attic Correctional Facility in New York State took control of the prison, and uprising that would make its mark on history. It was an event that would last for five days, but would end with utter devastation. Over 1200 inmates took 42 prison staff hostage over those five days, with prisoners asking for a couple of simple things – the right to better living conditions in the prison, and clemency for their actions in protesting to achieve it. Negotiations took place over four of those five days with authorities giving in to 28 of the prisoners’ 32 demands. It was an incident that should have ended peacefully, but instead ended with bloodshed after the then New York Governor, Nelson Rockefeller, ordered that police and officials forcefully take back control of the facility.
43 men died on that fifth day – 33 inmates, and 10 prison workers after state police charged the building after throwing in tear gas, and then using brutal force to take back control. Nelson’s film gathers reels and reels of archive news footage and interviews with survivors – former inmates, journalists and relatives of those who were killed – as well as little-heard, certainly in more recent times, interviews and news bites from those involved at the very top, including some haunting words in the aftermath from the then-President Richard Nixon.
You can be forgiven for not knowing the full extent of the events of Attica despite its footprint in popular culture, including the Al Pacino film Dog Day Afternoon. I was not aware of the sheer, unforgivable violence that took place on that last day, and the needlessness of the senseless, bloody climax that Nelson’s film so brilliantly reminds us of.
A well-constructed documentary and a necessary educational tool for younger viewers who may not be familiar of the events and the fallout from the horrific events in New York state in 1971. Nelson takes his time covering the lead up to that fateful fifth day, and the many negotiations and events of the first few days at Attica, but the final reel is the certainly the hardest hitting and doesn’t shy away from depicting that needless brutality that followed. Those thirty minutes are a really hard watch as images of the bloody, lifeless bodies are presented before us in uncompromising, unflinching fashion.
Quite literally one of the most important and best documentaries of the year.
Attica
Summary
An uncompromising, and unflinching account of the fateful events in New York state 1971 and one of the most important and best documentaries of the year.
